


Yearning to be Learning How to Fly

by etothepii



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-08
Updated: 2009-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothepii/pseuds/etothepii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny always seems to attract bad boyfriends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yearning to be Learning How to Fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peganix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peganix/gifts).



> Written for Peganix for the [New Year Resolutions 2009](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/index.shtml) challenge, who requested "Penny backstory", because Penny's awesome.

Penny's a magnet for bad boyfriends. It's like there's something about her that only appeals to men who are completely wrong for her. Sometimes it makes her want to punch her pillow and scream in frustration, because, why? What's wrong with her? How is this fair?

She glances up when the door to the Laundromat swings open, then drops her gaze; it's someone she doesn't recognize.

\--

Her first boyfriend is because when she's in the 8th grade, Penny doesn't know how to say no.

Devon is two years older than her, because he got held back a year. Twice. He grabs her arm and pulls her into the shadows behind the main school building, and he says, "You'll be my girlfriend, right?"

She thinks, you smoke in the bathrooms during class, and she remembers, they say you almost got expelled because you punched a teacher last year. But what she says is, "I like you..." and before she can say "but", he's grinning and pressing a bruising kiss against her mouth. When he pulls away, she can taste ashes on her lips.

"Great. Then you're my girlfriend. If anyone else touches you, I'll kill them," and with the way Devon's eyes glitter, eager and excited, she worries that he might mean it.

He's not a bad boyfriend, she supposes, and she thinks he actually likes her. Every few days, he brings her something -- a piece of candy, a box of matches, and one time even an expensive silver watch. When she asks, he says he finds them on the ground, but his eyes don't meet hers and she knows he's lying.

She gives the watch back to Mrs. Hamilton after school, horrified and bright red with shame, but Mrs. Hamilton only offers her a piece of chocolate from her desk and says serenely, "Thank you, Penelope."

They go on walks and he shows her things, like the knife he finds hidden under his older brother's bed, and the magazines he finds there too. She blushes bright red at the magazines, but when she says his name, completely scandalized, he laughs and tosses them away for her. He carves their initials into the side of a tree, and teaches her how to climb them too.

He has what her mother calls "wandering hands," and sometimes she's scared that he won't stop, won't let her be, but he always does in the end, even if sometimes she has to say it more than once.

They don't break up, but their relationship ends after two months, when he stabs the principal in the leg. She doesn't know where he goes after that, if he's in a center for boys like himself or just expelled, but she doesn't see him again.

She only misses him sometimes.

\--

By 11th grade, Penny's learned how to say no, and she says it until Trevor Donahue asks her to Winter Formal, because Trevor is handsome and funny and popular, and she kind of thinks he's cute.

Trevor is captain of the football team, and his father is on the board of directors for the district. He's already dated Emily and Tracy and Rebecca, who are cheerleaders and much prettier than she is, with their makeup and short skirts. She doesn't know what he sees in her, she who can't even wear lipstick without looking like a clown straight from the circus, and isn't allowed to wear skirts that don't reach past her knees.

On their dates, he strokes her long hair and whispers to her that she's beautiful, way better than the stuck-up bitches he usually goes with. He runs his hands down her arms and kisses her fingertips and rests his head on her breast to gaze up at her adoringly.

All the other girls are envious, glaring jealous daggers at her, but she endures it with pride, because he chose her, and not them. She sits with him at the popular table during lunch instead of eating in the library, and when he wraps a possessive arm around her waist, she beams at him because it means she belongs.

They go to prom together, and when he comes to pick her up, her mother takes pictures and gushes proudly about how gorgeous they look together. When her dad reminds him sternly to have her back by midnight, she blushes red with embarrassment but also pride, because she knows that's how her father says he loves her.

They sneak out, giggling, two hours before prom finishes, waving goodbye to their friends. He drives her to a lake, one they've been to before, one she's always loved because of how beautifully clear the water is. He takes her hand and turns her to face him, and when he reaches for the zipper on the back of her dress, she knows what he wants.

He says, "I love you, Penny," and when she hesitates, he says, "Don't you love me too?" and "It's okay, I promise it won't hurt. I'd never do anything to hurt you, I swear." He means it, but when she keeps pushing his hands away, he snarls, "Don't be so frigid," and grabs her wrist in a way that reminds her that they're completely alone together. He's much stronger than her, and the knowledge sends a frisson of fear down her spine.

So she smiles and lets him take off her dress, because she does love him. When he's done he helps her put her dress back on and gives her a secret smile that promises her that they'll be together forever, and asks her if she came.

It hurt like hell. She didn't.

She says, shyly, feeling the blush creep up her neck, "Yes?"

Later, he gives her his sports jacket... thing, which is apparently a big deal, and she wears it to school with pride, feeling it engulf her like his hug. It means she's his, and she thinks that she maybe wouldn't mind this lasting forever.

Eventually, near the end of her senior year, after the fight about her going to college but before she knows if she even got in anywhere, she catches him making out with Marcia Olsen under the bleachers after football practice. His hand is up her skirt and her hand is down his pants.

Their breakup takes four hours, mostly because he doesn't believe her when she says it's over between them and that she never wants to see him again. He follows her when she storms home, and goes to her window when she stomps up to her room to cry. It's remarkably freeing to scream at him all the unkind things she's thought but never voiced aloud, and by the time he gives up, she's feeling too wrung-out to cry any more.

She throws his stupid jacket in the trash can, and when he asks for it back, she tells him she lost it without an ounce of remorse. When her college acceptance letters come in, some of them even with scholarships, she chooses the school in California, as far from here as she can get without crossing an ocean.

Her parents cry when she tells them, but she promises to call every week, and she knows her mom's secretly proud of her.

Before she leaves, her dad gives her a knife the size of her forearm and makes her promise she'll take care of herself now that he's going to be too far away to do it for her.

\--

In college, her roommate Andy introduces her to feminism, activism, lesbianism, and so many other things ending in -ism that Penny can't keep track of them all.

Andy sees the world as a mosaic of things she can make better, things she can experience, and things she can learn. Andy teaches her how to make vegetarian dishes that actually taste good, shows her how to love a city by seeing what it could be instead of what's wrong with it, and gives her her first orgasm.

Andy calls Valentine's Day a marketing scheme created and exploited by Corporate America but buys her chocolates anyways, doesn't get mad the one time Penny accidentally spills her paints all over Andy's backpack, and never seems to mind when she doesn't feel like having sex.

They break up after six months, because even though she calls home every week, she can't find the courage to tell her mother that she might be queer, and she's pretty sure she never will. It doesn't bother her as much as it should, even when Andy says it's over between them and storms off in tears.

Eventually, they become friends again, because even if she doesn't love Andy like that, she still loves her.

She doesn't regret what they had, but personally, she thinks she prefers men, even when they're brutes.

She's disappointed in herself.

\--

Next is Jonathan, who asks her on dates and memorizes her schedule so he can walk her home and to class and to lunch and to dinner. He doesn't stop asking until she finally says yes. She's flattered when on their date, he takes her out to dinner and tells her he's in love with her, but it's also really, really freaky, because they barely know each other.

When he asks her out again, she suggests that maybe they should just be friends.

He agrees completely, even enthusiastically, and she's happy until she realizes that he hasn't stopped following her to classes and walking with her and glowering at men when they look at her for too long. He calls her every day, over and over until she picks up. He invites her to everything he does, and sends her flowers every Thursday.

She tries to hint that maybe she doesn't want to spend so much time with him; he doesn't notice. He never threatens her or makes her uncomfortable, and he seems genuinely happy to just spend time with her. She just... doesn't like him, and she spends many sleepless nights worrying that it makes her a bad person.

Over the phone, Andy tells her she should tell him to fuck off, but she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. She knows he's just trying to be nice, and he's always been nice to her. And it'd be so... weird to be friends with him one day and tell him to get lost the next.

He calls her when he's drunk and begs her to give him a chance with her, and he sounds so despondent and desperate that when she says she's not interested, she feels like the worst person who ever lived, but afterwards, she's proud of herself for standing firm. He calls her back the next afternoon to apologize and explains he didn't mean what he said, and after she accepts his apology with relief, he offers to take her to dinner and a movie.

She tells him to leave her alone when, during her weekly phone call to her parents, she learns that he called them to ask about her favorite foods and described himself as her boyfriend. She doesn't know how he got their phone number, and she doesn't ask because she's afraid that she won't want to know the answer.

He doesn't leave her alone, and looks genuinely betrayed when she tells him (again) to please go away, and he tells her to stop leading him on.

He finds out her next year's schedule and when she gets back after a long summer at home, he's waiting for her still.

In the end, it takes a restraining order and Andy's threat of violence to make him leave.

\--

She learns Billy's name when she campaigns for Caring Hands, but she's seen him around before at the Laundromat. They do laundry on the same days, and it makes her smile to see a familiar face when no one else has been signing her petition, even if he seems more interested in sending text messages than in helping the homeless.

She thinks he's nice.

She meets Captain Hammer shortly after that, when he saves her life in a whirl of perfect hair and adrenaline, and before she knows it she's caught in a whirlwind romance (she's never understood the phrase until now) with someone who just might be Mr. Right. Her secret crush on the cute boy at the Laundromat is forgotten until she realizes that Captain Hammer really is like pie -- cheesy on the outside, sweet on the inside, and then even more cheese underneath with no stop for thoughtfulness.

She'd thought she'd found someone who understood her, but she hadn't.

She knows she should be grateful to him, for all he's done -- convincing the Mayor to sign over the building, showing her his super hero gadgets, agreeing to volunteer with her. Plenty of girls would kill to be in her place.

She should be happy, and she is, really she is, but she can't help but remember Trevor and dating the handsome, popular guy, and look how well that turned out, right? Captain Hammer has the depth of a puddle, and nearly everything he says is somehow tactless and inappropriate.

A part of her wishes Billy had saved her instead, and that he'd been the one to invite her on a date. Even if he couldn't get the Mayor to sign over a building, she thinks it might have been worth it.

She likes Billy, cares about him, and she knows (hopes) he likes her back. They'd, they'd had moments together, even if those moments had been after she'd started seeing Captain Hammer.

She doesn't have to stay with Captain Hammer just because everyone thinks she should be grateful that he pays attention to her. She doesn't need to be with someone just because they like her. She's not in high school anymore, and it's about time that she takes control of her relationships.

Besides, she's an enlightened woman. She can ask someone out instead of waiting for them to ask her out. She doesn't have to buy into the misogynistic portrayal of women as only prizes to be won and property to be owned. She can make her own choices. She deserves to make her own choices, and no one else can stop her.

Quick, surreptitious phone calls assure her that Andy and her mother agree.

So on laundry day, after psyching herself up, she buys two frozen yogurts and waits for Billy, heart in her throat, searching for the right words, the perfect words that will explain everything.

He doesn't show up.  



End file.
